Interferometric systems are suited, inter alia, for the contact-free examination of surfaces of various objects to be measured. To detect the surface contour of an object to be examined, an object beam from a light source of the interferometer strikes the surface at the area to be measured. The object beam reflected by the surface is supplied to a detector of the interferometer and, together with a reference beam, forms an interference pattern, from which it is possible to derive the difference in path length of the two beams. This measured difference in the path length of the two beams corresponds to the change in the surface topography.
Particularly with a white-light interferometer, in which the light source emits a short-coherent radiation, it is also possible to scan the object to be measured with the aid of depth scanning. As explained, for instance, in the non-prepublished German Patent Application No. DE 103 25 443.9, in that case, the short-coherent radiation is split by a beam splitter into an object beam and a reference beam. The object surface to be measured is imaged via an objective onto an image recorder, e.g., a CCD camera (charge-coupled device camera), and superposed by the reference wave formed by the reference beam. The depth scanning may be implemented by moving a reference mirror reflecting the reference beam, or moving the object relative to the measuring device. When the object is moved, the image plane of the object and the reference plane are in the same plane. During depth scanning, the object remains fixed in the field of view of the CCD camera, and the object is only moved along the depth axis relative to the reference plane. In this manner, measurements of industrial surfaces may be conducted with a depth resolution in the range of a few nanometers. Technical fundamentals concerning this measuring method are also found in the “Three-Dimensional Sensing of Rough Surfaces by Coherence Radar”(T. Dresel, G. Häusler, H. Venzke, Appl. Opt. 31 (7), p. 919-925, 1992).
If, in this context, the measurement-object surface to be measured is not a uniform, level plane, then a special-purpose objective is necessary for measuring the object to be measured, for in each measuring procedure, care must be taken that, during scanning, the beams strike as perpendicularly as possible on the surfaces to be measured. For example, German Patent Application No. DE 101 31 778 describes a system of optical elements by which it is also possible to measure curved surfaces. Thus, for example, FIG. 1c from the cited document, reproduced herein as FIG. 5, shows how surfaces to be measured which are not easily accessible such as the inner surface of a cylinder or a bore can also be measured using the panoramic optics presented there. With the aid of a deviating prism in the panoramic optics, the beams are directed perpendicularly onto the inner surface of the bore. In a further exemplary embodiment, as illustrated n FIG. 1d of the cited document, reproduced herein as FIG. 6,the panoramic optics may be designed for an inner conical surface in a transition region of the bore. With the aid of the special optics, the parallel beams striking the optics are converted on the object side into beams which are disposed perpendicularly to the conical surface, i.e., the beams are fanned out. In practice, however, it is advantageous if both surfaces, thus the inner surface of a bore and the inner conical surface produced by a further narrowing of the bore, can be measured simultaneously. Such demands arise, for instance, when the position of a guide bore leading to a conical valve seat is measured. According to the related art, two or more panoramic optics may be arranged and designed in such a way that, in addition to being able to generate a flattened image from one surface area, it is possible to generate a flattened image from at least one further surface area at the same time. Likewise, at least one further reference plane may then be disposed in the reference light path according to the number of further surface areas for generating different optical path lengths. It is thus possible to measure the position of the guide bore leading to a spatially separated valve seat.
Thus, it is not possible to measure the two surfaces using only one objective. A simple combination of the two exemplary embodiments having a deflection mirror (FIG. 5) and having a beam-fanning optics (FIG. 6) from the related art would not be successful, since the beams would either cover only the inner surface of the bore or only the inner conical surface, depending on the order of the installation of the two optical elements.